Natural Beekeeping for the Conscientious Hobbyist

It is well known that the honeybees we rely on so heavily for food production are in serious decline due to a number of factors. Research shows that common beekeeping practices originally intended to help them survive may, in fact, be contributing to their demise. It seems, the most promising way to save our honeybees is to harness the power of natural selection, and to shift beekeeping practices back several thousand years before these problems arose.

The foremost objective of natural beekeeping is to provide honeybees with the ideal environment in which to thrive by drawing upon their inherent behavior and methods. To foster this, hobbyist beekeepers must immerse their minds in a myriad honeybee related topics. This talk is for aspiring beekeepers and bee lovers alike, and will cover honeybee natural history, honeybee biology, history of beekeeping, beehive designs, and beekeeping maintenance techniques.

Matt Reed, along with his partner Jill Reed, established Bee Thinking in 2008 as an internet resource for beekeepers throughout the world. At the same time, he also began mass-producing foundationless beehives for his own apiary. Soon, there was a great deal of interest from folks all over the world about getting involved in foundationless beekeeping, and he began selling the hives he was making. When interest continued to increase Bee Thinking began selling hives online to customers throughout the United States. Today Bee Thinking sells thousands of hives to beekeepers throughout North America and many countries abroad.

Bee Thinking is based out of SE Portland, with a retail location on Hawthorne Blvd., where locals can purchase all their beekeeping equipment, beehive products like honey and wax, and can sip honey wine at a mead tasting bar. When not reading about beekeeping, building hives or talking the ear off of anyone who will listen about bees, Matt spends his days ensuring operations at Bee Thinking run smoothly. Matt and Jill have their son, Henrik, over 35 beehives and 2 rescued, Miniature Australian Shepherds: Fred and Polly.